Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast
Speaker 1: wherever you talk through some of the big life changes
Speaker 1: and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for
Speaker 1: our psychology. Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast for
Speaker 1: a new episode, a new week, New listeners, old listeners.
Speaker 1: Great to have you here to discuss a really interesting
Speaker 1: topic today, one that has been on my mind for
Speaker 1: a while, and I thought it would be interesting just
Speaker 1: for my own personal knowledge, but for maybe anyone who's
Speaker 1: listening to do a little bit of a deep dive
Speaker 1: into this topic. And we have just one major question
Speaker 1: to answer today, one question I really want to get
Speaker 1: to the bottom of, and it's have does taking hormonal
Speaker 1: birth control in our twenties influence our psychological experience and wellbeing?
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, is it worth it?
Speaker 1: Should we be given more information when we make that decision?
Speaker 1: And what do we need to know about the interactions
Speaker 1: between taking hormonal birth control and our general wellbeing and
Speaker 1: how we experience the world and our emotional reactions in
Speaker 1: our twenties. So a super interesting topic, super interesting to research.
Speaker 1: There's so many different thoughts and it was a bit
Speaker 1: of an effort to discern fact from fiction. I think
Speaker 1: anytime we talk about women's reproductive health, it gets a
Speaker 1: little bit messy. There's often a lot of subjective information
Speaker 1: that we have to overlook. So yeah, there'll be heaps
Speaker 1: of really nuanced discussions in this episode that I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy. And thank you to my wonderful friends Make
Speaker 1: and also Make Yes two lovely mans for suggesting this
Speaker 1: topic or some version of it. I have really wanted
Speaker 1: to discuss this on the pod for some time, but
Speaker 1: like I said, it did require a little bit of research,
Speaker 1: and I think it might be slightly controversial in the
Speaker 1: eyes of some, so I really wanted to tread with
Speaker 1: some care but still do it justice. I think personally
Speaker 1: from the rhetoric I see online and even in my
Speaker 1: daily life, birth control can come with a lot of
Speaker 1: opinions attached to it, as do many topics related to
Speaker 1: female reproduction and female bodies. So implanting this episode, I
Speaker 1: really wanted to dispel some myths and discuss it from
Speaker 1: the perspective that we always take, which is a psychological one.
Speaker 1: So let's jump straight in and yeah, kind of get
Speaker 1: to the bottom. Really, I don't know, just have a
Speaker 1: nice discussion about what there is to consider when we
Speaker 1: start taking hormone or birth control, and I think we
Speaker 1: need to be honest. Most of us are having sex
Speaker 1: in our twenties, maybe casually or in a serious or
Speaker 1: committed relationship, but sex and intimacy do form a big
Speaker 1: element of most of our lives in our twenties. As
Speaker 1: we test relationships, we figure out what we want and
Speaker 1: quite frankly, just enjoy ourselves and have fun. But fun
Speaker 1: and exploration and pleasure aren't the only parts of sex.
Speaker 1: So as it's probably clear by now, in this episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about birth control for people, mainly
Speaker 1: for people with a vagina, but if you are someone
Speaker 1: who identifies as male and who has sex with women
Speaker 1: or those with a vagina, this episode is still very
Speaker 1: much for you. It is a mutual responsibility both parties
Speaker 1: responsibility to be concerned with reproductive health and the possibility
Speaker 1: of not only pregnancy but also STDs when we are
Speaker 1: engaging in consensual sex. And the use of hormonal birth
Speaker 1: control for those who are having sex who are sexually
Speaker 1: active is obviously a big thing to be considered, but
Speaker 1: it should not be a simple consideration and I think
Speaker 1: too Often when women go to their doctors at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen,
Speaker 1: or whenever they become sexually active and ask about birth
Speaker 1: control or are asked about whether they've considered it by
Speaker 1: their doctor or what method they are on. The first
Speaker 1: thing that's often suggested is hormonal birth control, normally the
Speaker 1: pill and one that is issued in based it's easy,
Speaker 1: it's effective, it's cheap, and I think that's often all
Speaker 1: that we want, and we might not ask many further questions,
Speaker 1: especially since we accept what our doctors have to say,
Speaker 1: we trust them, and considering that the pill is so
Speaker 1: socially accepted and prevalent, we probably know someone who is
Speaker 1: already on it, especially if you're a young woman in
Speaker 1: their teens or early twenties. But part of the conversation
Speaker 1: that is normally not had in that kind of medical
Speaker 1: context is the physical and psychological, emotional, mental side effects
Speaker 1: that can last even beyond when you do seek alternative methods,
Speaker 1: when you change birth control or stop it all together.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're discussing today. How does the use
Speaker 1: of hormone or birth control in our twenties shape our
Speaker 1: psychological experiences and our well being? How does it impact
Speaker 1: our relationship to our bodies. I know this is said
Speaker 1: all the time, but like the natural cycle for a
Speaker 1: woman follows a lot of cycles in nature, is that
Speaker 1: something that's important to consider. Interrupting that cycle might remove
Speaker 1: how in touch we are with the natural cycle of
Speaker 1: our hormones and the natural cycle of the planets. I
Speaker 1: know it sounds a little bit wishy washy, but this
Speaker 1: was some of the stuff that came up when I
Speaker 1: was researching this and put all the cards on the table.
Speaker 1: I think it's really important to consider, so hopefully we
Speaker 1: learn something today. I definitely did, so stick around. So
Speaker 1: before we discuss the psychology of birth control, specifically birth
Speaker 1: control that uses hormones like progression and estrogen, mainly the
Speaker 1: daily pillars, kind of the focus of this episode, let's
Speaker 1: do a bit of a history lesson and explain how
Speaker 1: it is that hormonal birth control methods came to be
Speaker 1: and how they work. So before we had this simple
Speaker 1: and easy form of reproductive control, the daily pill modern
Speaker 1: forms of birth control like latex condoms and uds, and
Speaker 1: of course birth control pills, they're all still relatively new
Speaker 1: in the context of general overall human history, but there
Speaker 1: were things that came before it, and records from ancient
Speaker 1: Greece and Egypt show that. I think control over reproduction
Speaker 1: has been a concern for, you know, pretty much as
Speaker 1: long as humans have been reproducing. Being able to have
Speaker 1: control over women's bodies, either for women or I guess
Speaker 1: for women, or by others that are invested in women's
Speaker 1: reproductive health has been something that's been on everyone's minds
Speaker 1: for a while, and it is actually a big part
Speaker 1: of history. I think we often tend to think that
Speaker 1: only in the last one hundred years have methods become
Speaker 1: available for women to have control over when they want
Speaker 1: to have children if they want to fall pregnant. But
Speaker 1: early birth control methods from around the world have been
Speaker 1: around for some time, and I had a little look
Speaker 1: into what some of these included because I thought it
Speaker 1: would be really interesting. But of course we had condoms.
Speaker 1: Often they were made from animal bladders or linen, or
Speaker 1: silk or plants. I don't know if that sounds particularly pleasant,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I guess they had to do what they
Speaker 1: had to do. Another really interesting one spermicides. So spermicides
Speaker 1: essentially stopped the sperm from reaching an egg by killing
Speaker 1: the sperm or by making it unable to swim. And
Speaker 1: there were these really interesting kind of archaeological studies and
Speaker 1: historical studies that found that some ancient cultures used to
Speaker 1: make spermicides out of vacacia and honey and rock salt
Speaker 1: and sometimes even like animal faces, and yeah, also doesn't
Speaker 1: sound particularly pleasant. Some of the other ones that were
Speaker 1: really interesting were sponges, like made of moss or bamboo
Speaker 1: these and they would often be soaked in oil or
Speaker 1: vinegar or lemon juice like substances that were believed to
Speaker 1: slow down or weakened sperm, and there were even early
Speaker 1: kind of suggestions of their being oral contraceptives often used
Speaker 1: by nobility, including Queen Ann. So she used to take
Speaker 1: lead yep and other toxic metals mixed within like pomegranate
Speaker 1: seeds and papaya and silopium and blue cohercion and things
Speaker 1: like that, and would consume them on a daily or
Speaker 1: before she was like having sex, to prevent herself from
Speaker 1: falling pregnant. So these don't sound like particularly fun methods
Speaker 1: of birth control, and not only were they not very effective,
Speaker 1: they could often be very dangerous, and sometimes it was
Speaker 1: the choice of men, whether they were used so cheap,
Speaker 1: easy accessible birth control that is within the women's control,
Speaker 1: such as the oral contraceptive, has obviously now been championed
Speaker 1: as a massive step forward for women's rights, big move
Speaker 1: from stuffing sponges in lemon juice up there. Not to
Speaker 1: be crude, but that kind of makes sense. Oral contraceptive
Speaker 1: has really changed the kind of landscape around reproductive health.
Speaker 1: It's now the personal, consistent choice of women over whether
Speaker 1: they want to have children or for pregnant, and allows
Speaker 1: them to kind of control the size of their families.
Speaker 1: I think we hear all these stories about people having
Speaker 1: ten fifteen children before hormonal birth control was invented, and
Speaker 1: that sounds also pretty unpleasant. And I think before the
Speaker 1: creation of the daily pill, women and people with a
Speaker 1: vagina were often kind of subject to the whims of
Speaker 1: their uterus and their cycles and didn't really have the
Speaker 1: same level of control over their reproductive systems. It also
Speaker 1: has to be said that it's a woman's choice often
Speaker 1: whether she consumes the pill, and it's completely within her
Speaker 1: control when she takes it if she wants to take
Speaker 1: it in most cases, and that is something that has
Speaker 1: only come up recently. Before it was kind of the
Speaker 1: men's decision whether they wanted to control the size of
Speaker 1: their families or prevent someone from falling pregnant. Hormonal birth control,
Speaker 1: particularly the daily pill, It was pioneered by four people
Speaker 1: in particular, and although they have contributed greatly to reproductive
Speaker 1: rights for women, their personal beliefs and values don't really
Speaker 1: paint them as kind of the feminist icons people serving
Speaker 1: heroes that the history books often call them. There are
Speaker 1: some details that are definitely overlooked that kind of murky
Speaker 1: the waters a little bit. So Firstly, there was this
Speaker 1: activist and sex educator. Her name was Margaret Sanger, and
Speaker 1: she is often called the founder or creator of modern
Speaker 1: day birth control. If you look up who was the
Speaker 1: creator of the pill, her name will probably often come up,
Speaker 1: and it will say something around the fact that she
Speaker 1: was this huge advocate, she was this feminist, she was
Speaker 1: pro sex. That all sounds really lovely, right, it sounds
Speaker 1: like something we really get behind. But what is not
Speaker 1: often known is that is kind of the way that
Speaker 1: she was able to catalyze or activate science to pursue
Speaker 1: this new technology, and that was by appealing to the
Speaker 1: eugenics movement to advocate for birth control. Yes, eugenics. For
Speaker 1: those of you who don't know what eugenics is, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've seen it in the history books in one
Speaker 1: form or another. It is the study of how to
Speaker 1: kind of arrange reproduction within a human population to increase
Speaker 1: the incurrence of heritable characteristics that we see as desirable. Okay,
Speaker 1: So if that sounds off and a little bit gross,
Speaker 1: you would be right. Other supporters of the eugenics movement
Speaker 1: include Hitler, for example, in his extermination of Jewish people
Speaker 1: and other populations. This can kind of be credited with
Speaker 1: thoughts and ideas that he gathered from the eugenic movement,
Speaker 1: and the idea that we want to be able to
Speaker 1: arrange the human population to be desirable. Some white surprise.
Speaker 1: Hermiscy groups also still a big proponents of eugenics, So
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like a particularly kind and moral group
Speaker 1: to be a part of. But it also does make
Speaker 1: sense that the people who would want to eliminate undesirable
Speaker 1: characteristics and genes would be the first ones in support
Speaker 1: of a form of medicine that allows them to control
Speaker 1: in some ways and who cannot have children, So that
Speaker 1: was kind of the group that Margaret was appealing to
Speaker 1: there is the jury is still out over whether she
Speaker 1: just saw it as a means to an end and
Speaker 1: just wanted funding to pursue this new technology and she
Speaker 1: thought it would really put the power back in the
Speaker 1: hands of women. But that's kind of still up for debate.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a very dark history when we
Speaker 1: think about how common hormonal birth control and the daily
Speaker 1: pill is now and how kind of unconsciously a lot
Speaker 1: of women tend to take it without really knowing the
Speaker 1: origin stories of this birth control method. But there are
Speaker 1: other pioneers of kind of modern day hormone or birth control,
Speaker 1: and these include the biologist and scientist Gregory Pinkers. This
Speaker 1: suffragist and she was also a millionaire, Katherine mccomrick. She
Speaker 1: was an heiress and is kind of credited with giving
Speaker 1: a lot of the financial backing to some of the
Speaker 1: first early clinical trials. And then we have a Catholic
Speaker 1: physician and a gynecologist also a scientist whose name was
Speaker 1: John Rock and he helped conduct the first clinical trials.
Speaker 1: So the research was kind of getting underway in the
Speaker 1: forties as scientists realize that by increasing the rates of
Speaker 1: certain hormones in primates but also in humans, they could
Speaker 1: prevent ovulation and they could prevent people from falling pregnant.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen fifty four, these two doctors, Pincers and Rock,
Speaker 1: with the backing of our friend Catherine and the racist Margaret,
Speaker 1: began their first trials in Massachusetts, and they were pretty small.
Speaker 1: It was only on about fifty women. And like I said,
Speaker 1: they had realized a little bit earlier that if we
Speaker 1: increase the rates of estrogen and progresterone in our bodies,
Speaker 1: the two main hormones that work on our reproductive system
Speaker 1: and within our bodies, the following effects that it would
Speaker 1: have on our internal systems and the reaction would help
Speaker 1: prevent pregnancy. So this is how the pill works. When
Speaker 1: we artificially increase the rates of estrogen and progresterone, these
Speaker 1: hormones suppress the release of a follicle stimulating hormone and
Speaker 1: the lutinizing hormone from the petuity ground in the female body.
Speaker 1: So basically, these two hormones trigger the release of estrogen
Speaker 1: from the ovaries, which in turn stimulates the release of
Speaker 1: a mature egg, which is how we fall pregnant. But
Speaker 1: if these two hormones, So the follicle stimulating and the
Speaker 1: lutinizing hormone are suppressed, the chances of ovulation and therefore
Speaker 1: fertilization by a male sperm cell are significantly reduced. Basically,
Speaker 1: it interrupts our body signals within our normal cycle and
Speaker 1: tells the body that you know, no, we can't get pregnant.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't release these two main hormones because we already
Speaker 1: have enough of this other hormone in the body. Our
Speaker 1: body is doing fine, we'll be able to fall pregnant normally.
Speaker 1: So it basically blocks our body from responding to natural
Speaker 1: cues to release an egg, meaning that no egg is
Speaker 1: released and therefore you can't get pregnant. So Progression only
Speaker 1: birth control pills. They do something a little bit different.
Speaker 1: If it's just progressterone, They kind of make it difficult
Speaker 1: for sperm to reach the egg in the event that
Speaker 1: ovulation occurs, but it has less of a direct effect
Speaker 1: on that follicle stimulating and lutinizing hormones, so it doesn't
Speaker 1: stop ovulation. It just prevents kinds of the sperm from
Speaker 1: getting in. So these two doctors, Rock and pinkis used
Speaker 1: an oral contraceptive pill much like the ones we have today,
Speaker 1: containing synthetic progressterone that they got supplied by a pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: company and they administered it to fifty women under what
Speaker 1: they called a fertility study because at the time, in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, so not even a hundred years ago,
Speaker 1: not even one hundred years ago, contraception was illegal in
Speaker 1: much of the United States, including in Massachusetts, so they
Speaker 1: kind of had to conduct this study on the guise
Speaker 1: of actually trying to help women fall pregnant rather than
Speaker 1: giving women the power to not do so. So this
Speaker 1: pill was taken by women for twenty one days, followed
Speaker 1: by a seven day break, and they concluded that no
Speaker 1: ovulation occurred in any of the women during drug administration,
Speaker 1: basically meaning that when these women were taking this artificial steroid,
Speaker 1: they could not fall pregnant. So one of the scientists
Speaker 1: they wrote a scientific research paper and explained how this
Speaker 1: drug succeeded in inhibiting ovulation, but skepticism kind of remained
Speaker 1: in authorities at the time. There was, I guess a
Speaker 1: lot of rhetoric around whether women should be able to
Speaker 1: control whether they wanted to give birth, especially considering that
Speaker 1: the World War Two had occurred only ten years before,
Speaker 1: and there was a big push to increase population size
Speaker 1: and to have more children. So the introduction of something
Speaker 1: that would allow women to control whether or whether they
Speaker 1: didn't want to have children kind of stood in the
Speaker 1: way of that goal of increasing the size of the
Speaker 1: population of the US, But they pushed ahead, and in
Speaker 1: order to provide kind of further evidence that this daily
Speaker 1: pill was effective, they moved their studies to Puerto Rico
Speaker 1: to conduct a larger clinical trial. Now, there is a
Speaker 1: lot of ethical discussions around ducting medical trials in communities
Speaker 1: that might maybe less developed or have lower incomes them say,
Speaker 1: more developed countries like the US, So it's believed that
Speaker 1: the reason they took their study here was because a
Speaker 1: it was cheaper to get participants. In some cases, they
Speaker 1: didn't even need to they only needed to pay them
Speaker 1: a small amount, and there would be less kind of
Speaker 1: ethical and moral questions and questions from the government regarding
Speaker 1: their intent. Basically, they could do things that were a
Speaker 1: little bit more dangerous knowing that no one would really
Speaker 1: care other than the communities, and their voices weren't loud
Speaker 1: enough to be heard on an international scale. Luckily enough,
Speaker 1: the pill was reported successful to be successful. But and
Speaker 1: this is a really crucial point for our later discussions,
Speaker 1: there were so many side effects for legal consideration and
Speaker 1: for medical consideration that the medical director of the clinical
Speaker 1: trials actually said that the should not be considered that
Speaker 1: the hormonal birth, that hormonal birth control of the pill
Speaker 1: posed too many side effects and dangers for it to
Speaker 1: become more popular and prevalent. Instead, they forged ahead, and
Speaker 1: after kind of conducting further clinical trials and lowering the
Speaker 1: dosage of estrogen and progresstone, the female controlled contraceptive method
Speaker 1: now known as the pill became a rapid nationwide use
Speaker 1: for protection against pregnancy, and nowadays and we know it
Speaker 1: is prescribed in its millions to people all over the
Speaker 1: world every year and is one of the most popular
Speaker 1: birth control methods for many of the reasons we've already stated.
Speaker 1: It is cheap, it is effective, it is within the
Speaker 1: women's control. But it's also important to remember those initial
Speaker 1: side effects that were brought up in those early clinical
Speaker 1: start in those early clinical trials that initially caused people
Speaker 1: to be quite wary of the use of synthetic to
Speaker 1: control our natural cycles. And this is kind of what
Speaker 1: I want I'm keen to discuss for the rest of
Speaker 1: this episode, firstly diving into some of the physical side effects,
Speaker 1: and then of course moving on to the psychological impacts
Speaker 1: of regularly taking synthetic hormones and what that does for
Speaker 1: our mental well being and the natural processes and cycles
Speaker 1: of our bodies. Okay, I'm going to make a bit
Speaker 1: of a disclaimer, and I'm gonna make it early before
Speaker 1: we start talking about some of the side effects and
Speaker 1: impacts and influences that come with hormonal birth control, particularly
Speaker 1: the pill. Personally, I am not the biggest fan of
Speaker 1: this method of reproductive health or reproductive control. From my experience,
Speaker 1: I have found that the side effects greatly outweigh the benefits,
Speaker 1: and in some cases, some of the more serious side
Speaker 1: effects that are more common than you would probably think,
Speaker 1: aren't always discussed in a medical environment or in a
Speaker 1: medical context when you might be first being prescribed the pill,
Speaker 1: often at an early age. But I also know it's
Speaker 1: a personal choice and there are a number of amazing
Speaker 1: reasons for being on birth control, and family planning is
Speaker 1: just kind of one of them. So I think there
Speaker 1: is a misconception that people who take the pill take
Speaker 1: it for one reason there's actually active they want to
Speaker 1: not fall pregnant. But it's really an amazing kind of
Speaker 1: technology and an amazing medicine for controlling things like endometritis,
Speaker 1: for controlling acne, and regulating heavy or irregular periods that
Speaker 1: can cause things like anemia and iron deficiency. And there's
Speaker 1: also been some interesting studies that have shown that it
Speaker 1: can reduce the risk of uterine cancer and some other
Speaker 1: forms of preventable cancers that often are more prevalent in women.
Speaker 1: So birth control is not the only kind of function
Speaker 1: only planning is not the only function. It can have
Speaker 1: a lot of other impacts on our physical health and
Speaker 1: our wellbeing that often not discussed as much. And these
Speaker 1: are all some of the really amazing benefits of using
Speaker 1: synthetic hormones, not just for birth control, but for other
Speaker 1: elements of physical health and wellbeing. And it might be
Speaker 1: something that you would consider if you have endometritis or
Speaker 1: at a regular period. It's a great way to kind
Speaker 1: of take control over your health, not just in terms
Speaker 1: of deciding when you want to have a family, but
Speaker 1: thinking about your health in a more holistic way. Though
Speaker 1: we kind of typically present hormonal contraceptives as a really
Speaker 1: great success for women, which they are. Sometimes we do
Speaker 1: tend to overlook some of the serious side effects that
Speaker 1: have been reported in mainstream scientific literature, and I've often
Speaker 1: found that when you are initially being prescribed to the pill,
Speaker 1: and this is obviously anecdotal, they're not always brought up,
Speaker 1: either through negligence or just because they're not seen as important.
Speaker 1: And women who do regularly ingest hormonal birth control methods
Speaker 1: will find that they usually have a few side effects.
Speaker 1: Most of the time they're common and they're manageable, but
Speaker 1: they can be more serious. And I'm sure we've all
Speaker 1: had friends who have told us stories about terrible episodes
Speaker 1: of depression or weight gain or mood swings, even stories
Speaker 1: about people who've had strokes or heart attacks, because the
Speaker 1: interaction between because increasing kind of hormone levels, particularly through
Speaker 1: artificial methods, can really fuck with our bodies in some
Speaker 1: ways and interact with pre existing conditions in ways that
Speaker 1: can be quite dangerous. Some of the common kind of
Speaker 1: physical side effects that I think are pretty manageable can
Speaker 1: be things like nausea and headaches, acne, decreased libido, and
Speaker 1: weight gain, all of these I think are something that
Speaker 1: can be brought into the equation of costs and benefits
Speaker 1: or risks and benefits that we kind of all personally
Speaker 1: have to do when we are considering birth control and
Speaker 1: family planning. Is weight gain, is a decreased libido, is
Speaker 1: acne something that is worth it for you, and that's
Speaker 1: a completely personal choice. But there can be some more
Speaker 1: serious side effects that we don't discuss as much, and
Speaker 1: although they're not as common for those who do experience them,
Speaker 1: it can be pretty dangerous things like blood clots, having
Speaker 1: heart attacks, high blood pressure, a stroke. There are even
Speaker 1: some cancers that there have been indications that increasing the
Speaker 1: synthetic level of hormones such as estrogen and progress drawine
Speaker 1: in your body can contribute to, such as liver cancer.
Speaker 1: But these are all more likely to be the case
Speaker 1: with underlying conditions such as a predisposition or a family
Speaker 1: history of particular cancers and blood conditions like light and
Speaker 1: factor five, which aren't often tested for when we are
Speaker 1: prescribed birth control, which was the case for myself. So
Speaker 1: if you do have a predisposition to perhaps experiencing some
Speaker 1: of the more serious side effects, it's really important that
Speaker 1: is known, and that is part of the equation before
Speaker 1: you make the decision to take oral contraceptives or to
Speaker 1: take the pill. And often it's not something that is
Speaker 1: factored in and it's not something that your doctor alerts
Speaker 1: you to when you're first being prescribed this medication. So
Speaker 1: if you are on hormonal birth control at the moment
Speaker 1: or considering it, it would really suggest that you get
Speaker 1: your doctor to run a blood test, make sure that
Speaker 1: you don't have any underlying conditions that might increase your
Speaker 1: likelihood of experiencing some of those more serious side effects
Speaker 1: light blood clots and light stroke, and also considering what
Speaker 1: dosage you're on. The more estrogen and progressed roone that
Speaker 1: is in the pill, it will increase the effectiveness, but
Speaker 1: it's more likely that you will have some of those
Speaker 1: side effects that we've talked about. But this is a
Speaker 1: psychology podcast, so let's cover some of the psychological side
Speaker 1: effects of long term and even short term birth control use.
Speaker 1: That's the question we really wanted to answer today. Birth
Speaker 1: control and hormonal birth control is so common, particularly amongst
Speaker 1: women in their twenties, but what does that mean for
Speaker 1: how they experience their twenties and what does it mean
Speaker 1: for their psychological outlook, their choices, their behaviors, and their
Speaker 1: emotional well being. So I think the long term impact
Speaker 1: of the oral contraceptive and birth control methods on human
Speaker 1: psychology has been vastly under researched in the past and
Speaker 1: even in the current day, and has really only recently
Speaker 1: become a focus for mainstream scholars. Particularly, I think for
Speaker 1: minority populations, they've often not been included in this research,
Speaker 1: as is often the case, and in general, I think
Speaker 1: it is a pretty common understanding that health issues related
Speaker 1: to women receive less funding, receive less research interest, and
Speaker 1: that can have a really big long term impact on
Speaker 1: how things like hormonal birth control are treated and the
Speaker 1: availability of these medications. So, hormonal contraceptive uses, in contrast
Speaker 1: with non users, have been found to have higher rates
Speaker 1: of things like depression and anxiety, fatigue, sexual disturbances, compulsion,
Speaker 1: and anger, all of which kind of create our outlook
Speaker 1: on life. It makes sense you're putting something artificial into
Speaker 1: your body, and it does have incredible benefits. That allows
Speaker 1: you to have control over your body, over when you
Speaker 1: want to fall pregnant. It allows for you to have
Speaker 1: control over some of those other conditions we talked about,
Speaker 1: like and geometritis or eye and deficiency, But there are
Speaker 1: some other important studies that show the depths of the
Speaker 1: psychological impact are often not well known and not shared
Speaker 1: as frequently in a medical context as they probably should be.
Speaker 1: So in September twenty sixteen, this Psychiatry journal published a
Speaker 1: really interesting kind of ground bakering Danish study that found
Speaker 1: a correlation between the use of hormonal birth control and
Speaker 1: being diagnosed with clinical depression. So this study attract hormonal
Speaker 1: birth control use and the prescription of antidepressants over six
Speaker 1: years for over a million women, so this was not
Speaker 1: a small clinical study like some of those studies that
Speaker 1: initially led to the creation of the pill that was
Speaker 1: over a million women, and they found the women who
Speaker 1: were on hormonal birth control such as the pill, were
Speaker 1: significantly more likely to be prescribed antidepressants compared to those
Speaker 1: who weren't taking or weren't using synthetic hormonal forms of
Speaker 1: birth control. And it found a particularly strong correlation between
Speaker 1: teenage birth control users and depression. So there was an
Speaker 1: eighty percent increase risk for teens taking birth control and
Speaker 1: their likelihood of starting antidepressants after going on the pill,
Speaker 1: and this is a really troubling statistic, especially because the
Speaker 1: pill is often prescribed when we are quite young, when
Speaker 1: we become sexually active, or sometimes to treat acne or
Speaker 1: severe menstrual symptoms, and just as a general preventative measure.
Speaker 1: That's something to be considered. Depression is obviously a pretty
Speaker 1: serious mental condition, and it's interesting that taking this pill is,
Speaker 1: or taking some form of hormonal birth control, is increasing
Speaker 1: your likelihood of suffering through what can be and what
Speaker 1: is often a really traumatic and difficult mental health problem.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing that was often brought up
Speaker 1: and there are kind of four other links that I
Speaker 1: wanted to make with psychology and taking hormonal birth control,
Speaker 1: and those are things like uncontrollable mood swings. We've talked about, depression,
Speaker 1: changes in sleeping patterns, loss of libido, and your sexual
Speaker 1: preferences and your sexual choices, all of which will have
Speaker 1: a pretty deep and profound impact on how you experience
Speaker 1: your twenties, how you go about living your daily life,
Speaker 1: your relationships with your partners, with your friends, with your family,
Speaker 1: and just with your general overall experiences. So of all
Speaker 1: of the side effects of hormonal birth control, mood swings
Speaker 1: are often the most common, so it's pretty common to
Speaker 1: feel irritable or short tempered, particularly around when your period
Speaker 1: might take place, and hormonal birth control makes those mood
Speaker 1: swings much worse to the point of, I don't know,
Speaker 1: crying for no reason, feeling a lot of guilt, feeling
Speaker 1: bad about your self, having low self esteem, and just
Speaker 1: a general kind of sadness about the way that you're
Speaker 1: living your life. So up to ten percent of women
Speaker 1: aren't actually able to tolerate synthetic progressterone as an ingredient
Speaker 1: in birth control because of this impact, because they do
Speaker 1: have uncontrollable mood swings that make it difficult to kind
Speaker 1: of function in their daily life and decrease their well
Speaker 1: being to the point that taking this easy form of
Speaker 1: birth control just isn't worth it for them anymore. Like
Speaker 1: I said, this is a personal choice, and that's only
Speaker 1: the case with ten percent of women. Most women might
Speaker 1: not have this reaction. They might find that their side
Speaker 1: effects or some of the impacts are super minor, and
Speaker 1: the benefits of being able to control when they're fall pregnant,
Speaker 1: of being able to control their likelihood of having a
Speaker 1: child or family planning. That is an amazing benefit, and
Speaker 1: it's a really empowering benefit, and it's worth it for them.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about depression a little bit more
Speaker 1: because that is perhaps one of the most serious side
Speaker 1: effects and one of the most common as well. In
Speaker 1: the days before your mentoral cycle begins or before your period,
Speaker 1: it's pretty natural to have an emotional shift that's going
Speaker 1: to cause you to feel less confident about yourself, maybe
Speaker 1: emotionally sensitive, a bit moody. But when these symptoms change
Speaker 1: from uncomfortable feelings to depressive symptoms such as an inability
Speaker 1: to get out of bed, feeling really unhappy about your life,
Speaker 1: significant appetite changes, significant changes to your motivation, significant changes
Speaker 1: to your capacity or your ability to reach out to
Speaker 1: family and friends and ask for support, that's probably a
Speaker 1: time and an indicator that you need to be concerned
Speaker 1: your overall functioning is not where it should be. Your
Speaker 1: twenties are meant to be a time of experiencing things
Speaker 1: and being happy with your self and exploring things and
Speaker 1: trying new things out and getting out there and making
Speaker 1: friends and being social before you have some of those
Speaker 1: responsibilities that come along with later life. But research measuring
Speaker 1: the clinical impact of oral conscienceptives. Like I said, it
Speaker 1: found that women taking the pill are more likely to
Speaker 1: suffer from depression than non pill users, and women using
Speaker 1: birth control with particularly large amounts of estrogen had more
Speaker 1: instances of depression than those who are on a lower dosage.
Speaker 1: So perhaps that's something that needs to be questioned. Is
Speaker 1: it worth prescribing women birth control pills and the pill
Speaker 1: that have large amounts of this synthetic hormone that we
Speaker 1: can really increase their risk of pretty serious side effects.
Speaker 1: Studies have also shown that women with a history of
Speaker 1: depressive symptoms it can be made worse when they're on
Speaker 1: birth control. So I think if you have a history
Speaker 1: of depression, feel a significant change in your emotions leading
Speaker 1: up to your period, to the point of severe impacts
Speaker 1: on your functioning, maybe even thoughts of self harm, really
Speaker 1: low confidence, it's important to speak to your doctor about
Speaker 1: alternative birth control methods. The pill is really easy, like
Speaker 1: I said, it's often prescribed early and really frequently. But
Speaker 1: when we come to think about these psychological impacts that
Speaker 1: will bleed on to the rest of your life, perhaps
Speaker 1: it is important to consider non hormonal birth control methods
Speaker 1: or those that aren't as reliant on estrogen to kind
Speaker 1: of control your cycle. There are some other things that
Speaker 1: are really important to consider that linked to our psychology
Speaker 1: in our twenties, and that's changes in sleeping patterns and
Speaker 1: a loss of lobido. So it's really normal to have
Speaker 1: an off day here and there where you feel like
Speaker 1: you just want to sleep in you can't get to sleep.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're experiencing insomnia. But if you feel like this
Speaker 1: every day, it could be that your birth control is
Speaker 1: affecting or sleeping patterns. Often it's birth control that contains
Speaker 1: progresterone that can lead you to experiencing either extreme insomnia
Speaker 1: or extreme fatigue. And one of the other symptoms that
Speaker 1: I think is talked about a lot, but it's important
Speaker 1: to be considered in a more nuanced lie is a
Speaker 1: loss of libido. Let's be honest, most of us go
Speaker 1: on hormonal birth control because we want to have sex
Speaker 1: and we want to enjoy the sex that we're having.
Speaker 1: Maybe you first considered it when you had your first
Speaker 1: long term partner, or you're becoming sexually active with someone
Speaker 1: who could make you feel pregnant, and I guess if
Speaker 1: that's the reason why you go on hormonal birth control,
Speaker 1: you probably want to be able to have sex after
Speaker 1: you're on it, But birth control has been found to
Speaker 1: kind of reduce sexual desire in women. So most combined
Speaker 1: birth control pills, which are the most common, they contain
Speaker 1: estrogen and progresterone, which we have talked about, and these
Speaker 1: hormones tinker with the way your body works. Many of
Speaker 1: these combined pills actually lower your testosterone levels relative to
Speaker 1: your estrogen levels, and testosterone is the hormone that makes
Speaker 1: you want to have sex. We generally think of it
Speaker 1: as a male hormone, but women also have it, just
Speaker 1: not as much, and it's really important for controlling sexual
Speaker 1: desire and controlling kind of energy levels, levels of kind
Speaker 1: of passion and emotion. But if the pill kind of
Speaker 1: interrupts the kind of production of testosterone which ignites sexual desire,
Speaker 1: you might see might start to see that you do
Speaker 1: have lower levels of sexual desire. That can have an
Speaker 1: impact on your relationship. Obviously, choosing to have sex and
Speaker 1: when you want to have sex is completely up to
Speaker 1: you and should always be consensual, but in committed relationships,
Speaker 1: sex is often a really important element of the relationship
Speaker 1: and it's part of the discussions that we have to
Speaker 1: have with our partner. So seeing a dramatic change in
Speaker 1: the amount that might want to be sexually active with
Speaker 1: your partner or be intimate with them can really impact
Speaker 1: the state of your relationship and can lead to perhaps
Speaker 1: some difficult discussions women who use birth control, particularly hormonal
Speaker 1: birth control. I would like to say things like condoms
Speaker 1: obviously are external, they don't really impact on the internal
Speaker 1: functioning of our body. Same with the copper IUD, which
Speaker 1: isn't hormonally based. But hormonal birth control methods have been
Speaker 1: linked to, like I said, reduced sexual functioning, but also
Speaker 1: a high interest in short term sexual relationships compared to
Speaker 1: naturally kind of cycling counterparts. And some evidence even suggests
Speaker 1: that birth control might even alter your mate choice and
Speaker 1: may negatively affect sexual satisfaction in women who are choosing
Speaker 1: to have sex with men, and that has really important
Speaker 1: impacts on who you choose to date, the kind of
Speaker 1: sex you choose to have. And I don't think it's
Speaker 1: perhaps a negative thing, but it's just something to be
Speaker 1: considered and also really interesting when we think that we
Speaker 1: think about the relationship between increasing the level of these
Speaker 1: hormones in our body and who we choose as a mate,
Speaker 1: or who we choose as a partner, or who we
Speaker 1: choose to have sex with. Yeah, something to be considered.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's necessarily a negative thing, but it's
Speaker 1: just a really interesting finding and I think kind of
Speaker 1: highlights that deeper interaction I'm trying to paint a picture of,
Speaker 1: which is that taking the pillars not a passive decision.
Speaker 1: It does actually have huge, huge impacts on how we
Speaker 1: go about our lives in our twenties, and whenever you're
Speaker 1: taking hormonal birth control, the choices we choose to make
Speaker 1: our outlook, our mental well being. I would like to say,
Speaker 1: just because there have been links between hormonal birth control
Speaker 1: and mental health issues and other psychological side effects, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that birth control will have the same impact
Speaker 1: on everyone using it. I think these can be particular
Speaker 1: cases and often making the decision to lower your dose
Speaker 1: or to perhaps try a different method, like I said,
Speaker 1: non hormonal birth control methods like natural family planning or
Speaker 1: the copper IUD or condoms, that just might be a
Speaker 1: personal and conscious choice that you have to make. If
Speaker 1: that equation and if that kind of calculation of the
Speaker 1: cost versus the benefits of hormonal birth control. Maybe is
Speaker 1: leaning more towards the cost and more towards the risks.
Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning into this episode. This was a
Speaker 1: really interesting discussion for me, and hopefully it has been
Speaker 1: nuanced and I've been able to kind of represent all perspectives.
Speaker 1: But I think at the end of the day, the
Speaker 1: conclusion that I kind of made when I was researching
Speaker 1: this and then I was discussing this, is that hormonal
Speaker 1: birth control, although it might be common and prevalent, is
Speaker 1: not always the simplest and easiest way of kind of
Speaker 1: controlling our reproductive system. And it's not the simplest, easiest
Speaker 1: way of birth control. There are heaps of considerations that
Speaker 1: we need to account for, especially around our psychological wellbeing
Speaker 1: and the interactions that increasing the level of hormones like
Speaker 1: progressed tone and estrogen has on our mental wellbeing and
Speaker 1: our emotional wellbeing, how we process emotions, how we see
Speaker 1: the world, even our experience of pretty intense and severe
Speaker 1: and significant mental health conditions like depression. So if this
Speaker 1: has been something that's been on your mind, I would
Speaker 1: really advocate for you going to your doctor to discuss
Speaker 1: it with them and doing your research, having the facts
Speaker 1: and keeping kind of a logo of what the impact
Speaker 1: has been on you and why you think it might
Speaker 1: be important for you to perhaps consider an alternative method,
Speaker 1: or maybe your birth control is going fine, and you
Speaker 1: know what, congratulations, that is amazing. You should be able
Speaker 1: to be empowered and I'll be able to make the
Speaker 1: decision over when you want to fall pregnant, if you
Speaker 1: want to fall pregnant, if you want to start a family,
Speaker 1: when you want to start a family. And I think
Speaker 1: that is just one of the amazing benefits of this
Speaker 1: technology that, like I said, has only really become available
Speaker 1: in the last sixty years, and it really has changed
Speaker 1: the landscape for women's rights and the rights of those
Speaker 1: with a vagina around how they want to use their
Speaker 1: bodies and how they want their bodies to be treated. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: a really really interesting historically based topic on the podcast
Speaker 1: this week. I really hope you enjoyed it. There will
Speaker 1: be some resources in the description of this episode if
Speaker 1: you want to do some further research and have a
Speaker 1: look at some of the sort that I looked at.
Speaker 1: I tried to get a nice balance so that there
Speaker 1: were different perspectives being represented, but yeah, really interesting, and
Speaker 1: thank you again for listening. If you feel called to
Speaker 1: do so, please feel free to leave a five star
Speaker 1: review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you are
Speaker 1: listening to this episode right now and if you feel
Speaker 1: cool to do so. We do also have a new
Speaker 1: subscriber network, so you can subscribe on Spotify and receive
Speaker 1: access to bonus content like let's get friendly episodes and
Speaker 1: guest episodes. So I'm just kind of trialing it at
Speaker 1: the moment, but it has been really amazing seeing how
Speaker 1: many people have gotten behind it, and it really allows
Speaker 1: me to do some of that content that's a bit
Speaker 1: more casual and a bit more personal, but makes or
Speaker 1: make it available to people to listen to it if
Speaker 1: they are interested. So thank you again and hopefully I
Speaker 1: will see you back next week when we're going to
Speaker 1: be discussing the idea of soulmates and twin Flames.